First on this tape, The Curse of Mr Bean. I always think, when the Mini is bombing around in small spaces like the car park, that you can tell Rowan Atkinson loves driving.
Mr Bean goes swimming. Angus Deayton appears as a lifeguard.
There’s the inevitable loss of swimming trunks, and some Atkinson bottom on show.
In the second sketch, that master of disguise Deayton appears again, unrecognisable now as ‘man with moustache on a bench’.
There’s some inventive comedy here.
After this episode, recording switches to BBC2 and the first episode of The Mary Whitehouse Experience (not the pilot but the first episode of the first series). So young.
So very young.
There’s a guest appearance from the Pet Shop Boys.
BBC Genome: BBC Two – 3rd January 1991 – 21:00
After this, recording switches straight over to BBC1 and an episode of Smith and Jones. Mel plays a psychic.
BBC Genome: BBC One – 3rd January 1991 – 21:30
Before the next episode, there’s the end of an episode of Bleak House.
There’s a trailer for Heading Home featuring a young Gary Oldman.
Then, another episode of The Mary Whitehouse Experience. Hugh Dennis ice skates.
And plays Lynn Faulds Wood
“Hey, what’s this? It’s got a good beat.” Still a line I use in everyday life.
BBC Genome: BBC Two – 10th January 1991 – 21:00
Before the next episode, the end of Bleak House, and an adjustment of the evening’s schedule, with Crimewatch moving from BBC1 to BBC2, replacing 40 minutes. This is a result of a Prime Ministerial broadcast by John Major, followed by an extending Nine O’Clock News. Here’s the revised schedule.
Then, avoiding reshuffling, another episode of The Mary Whitehouse Experience. Here’s a joke involving references to The Happy Mondays and Peter Beardsley. It was at this point I realised I might be starting to get old, as both meant nothing to me.
Nick Hancock makes a guest appearance playing ‘the fat one off of Soft Cell’.
BBC Genome: BBC Two – 17th January 1991 – 21:00
Straight into the next episode, This one has the first appearance in the show of ‘Chinny Reckon’, one of those strange things that almost everyone of a certain age came across in the playground (predating these shows by at least a decade). I’ve still got no idea how these started, but it appears to be a national thing, with several variants. I personally heard ‘Jimmy Hill’ and the lesser known ‘Itchy Beard’. I’d never heard ‘Chinny Reckon’ until I watched this episode, though. I’d be fascinated to see if there’s anyone who knows how it started, as I assume it must have been a TV thing, but I’ve no idea where from. There’s a whole thesis about modern oral culture going begging there.
BBC Genome: BBC Two – 24th January 1991 – 21:00
After this, recording continues for a bit. There’s a trailer for Arena: Derek Jarman A Portrait.
Then, the start of 40 Minutes: Around Midnight.
This recording ends, and underneath, there’s a bit of Crimewatch UK. The tape ends after a few minutes of that.
VHiStory 
I think Mr Bean is very underrated critically, although it was massively succesful commercially. A google seach suggests that Chinny Reckon comes from two earlier phrases – ich ne reckon (Germanic) and ‘ch ne reckon (West Country) but I think Jimmy Hill’s TV presence must have been the catalyst for the phrase becoming more widespread from the 1970s onwards.
Never heard of ‘chinny reckon’, but by the turn of the 1990s we were doing that gesture, accompanied by the word ‘ponder’ (delivered in a suitably ponderous fashion), round our way.
Greg Davies did a good piece in one of his shows about “Chinny Reckon” (or “BEARD!” as his variation went). It’s definitely something of regional variation.
The Lynn Folds Wood catchphrase was “this could be a potential death trap” which doesn’t reuse as well, but was still funny.
I love the variation over the chin stroking. It’s not the regional variations that surprise me, it’s the fact that this was something that happened everywhere, and seemingly arose in a very short space of time, a few years.
And I have to admit that ‘This could be a potential death trap’ in LFW’s accent is something I still do today.
Curse of Mr Bean – New Year’s Day 1991.
That BBC2 schedule with Crimewatch moving over comes from the first day of the Gulf War, when the BBC1 schedule was more or less non-stop news with breaks for Neighbours and ‘stEnders, and Top of the Pops was hastily rescheduled to Saturday night.
I did hear somewhere that the shift of Crimewatch actually helped solve a crime as someone had recorded 40 Minutes only to find they got Crimewatch instead, so watched it and realised they had some vital information on one of the cases.
Hi, a friend has just sent me a link to this site and I’d be really interested in the Mary Whitehouse Experience material. I assembled a MWE box set a few years back, including S1-2, Newmand & Baddiel In Pieces, and the four live shows. My S1 is a bit sketchy in terms of quality and this looks much better.